


Goodbye To Yesterday

by dulce_de_leche_go



Series: Goodbye [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drama & Romance, F/M, HP: EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Memory Charms, Memory Loss, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-War, Romance, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, obliviate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 10:07:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13521996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dulce_de_leche_go/pseuds/dulce_de_leche_go
Summary: Memory charm fic. Hermione pays the price for helping the man she loves with his mission. It’s not easy to disappear in the eyes of the ones you love. It’s much harder to have it happen by your own hand. M for language, mild sexual references, major teen angst, and references to depression and thoughts of suicide. (Songfic-ish.)





	Goodbye To Yesterday

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on FFNet, this was a response to a private challenge received to write a story with the following guidelines:
> 
>  **Summary:** One of the main characters has to be the victim of obliviate.  
>  **Pairing:** Your choice.  
>  **Rating:** Any  
>  **Genre:** Angst  
>  **Length:** One-Shot/Short Story (10k words or less)
> 
>  
> 
> **My take on it was as follows:**
> 
>  
> 
> The setting is mainly Post-War/Return to Hogwarts.  
> Most major events should be book compliant as far as what happened but offer a different perspective on the motivations behind them.  
> The pairing is DM/HG.
> 
> I also wrote this kind of as a songfic since it's what inspired me so strongly in the first place. The song used is **"It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" by Boyz II Men.** (Have a listen. I love this song. Even if it hurts my feelings.)

* * *

 

A sheet of white covered the grounds. It'd been snowing since morning and was absolutely frigid even in the newly added Head's tower that boasted some _very_ slight practicality and modernization over the other ancient walls of the castle. Zabini had gone home for the holiday which left her blessedly alone in the chilled and so quiet dorm. She supposed she could start a fire but that would require moving and that wasn't in the books for today.

Today was Christmas day.

Once upon a time it was also something else.

Dark, chocolate colored eyes stared out past the frosted glass and focused on the snow. So pale. Pale like alabaster...like his skin..his hair...his eyes...

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-..-'~'-.,__ **

**_How do I say goodbye_ **

**_To what we had_ **

**_The good times that made us laugh_ **

**_Outweighed the bad_ **

**_-.,_,.-'~~'-.,_,.-_ **

**_'_ **

_He'd been detached this year, more than any before since they'd begun seeing one another in secret. He came back to school...different...and it pained her. It was like he'd donned a mask and the mask was of a darker, drearier version of the boy that had tortured her once before. Since that first day when Harry came to The Great Hall beaten and bloodied and she'd had it out with him in private, things had been tense. They didn't meet as they used to, they barely talked, though he didn't sneer or glare at her in class or in the halls like he once had._

_It was over._

_It had to have been over and she must have just...missed the memo somewhere._

_She tried to press on, to forget about him, but her heart and her mind had other agendas. It was as though they were drawn together; a magnetic force in any room. She could very nearly sense when he was nearby and by the way he would look up when her eyes automatically sought him out or how she would always catch him staring first, she knew it was the same for him._

_Hermione tried to pursue others. Maybe it was to make him jealous, maybe it was to make her forget. Whatever the reason, it didn't work._

_She'd gotten her invitation from Slughorn to attend his Christmas party and was in the library doing some light reading when their uneasy silence was finally lifted._

" _Don't take the Weasel," he said. His appearance was sudden and jarring as it blacked out her reading light all at once._

" _I'm sorry, who are you again?" she replied tartly. She tried to say it with a look that said he could go off himself but what she'd actually managed was just a stubborn and barely hidden yearning and elation at the fact he was within arm's reach after too many months of..._ ** _not_** _._

_He slammed her book shut, nearly clipping her fingers in the process. Without a second thought, he grabbed her wrist, tugging her back through the stacks students seldom sought out—stacks they'd often sneak a snog between...once upon a time._

_Not showing much care at all, he pushed her up against one of the heavy shelves, not painfully, but firmly enough to get her full attention. In answer, a small hand whipped out and caught him across the face in an open handed slap so harsh it snapped his head to the side. He hardly blinked before he had her again, wrists in his hands and her body trapped between his and the tomes at her back._

" _Don't take him."_

_Hermione scoffed, knowing full well he was referring to her 'plus one' for the party._

_"Just who the hell do you think you are?" she scolded in a harsh whisper._

_A sneer that she'd not missed in the least drew back his lip, but his eyes...they were hurt, not angry._

_"I'm your—"_

" _My_ **_what_** _? You haven't been my_ **_any_** _thing since the start of term! In fact, you've been going a great deal out of the way to—mmh!"_

_Her heated whispering was silenced by his lips on hers._

_It felt good._

_For the love of all things, it felt so good._

_His lips were just as she'd remembered them. Firm and wet and so very fucking good. Maybe they were a bit thinner than the last time _—_ all of him seemed a bit thinner this year—but it was like coming home. She stopped straining against his grip and as soon as she did, his hands moved to cup her face, stroking her cheeks lovingly. _

_He touched her in adoration—like it was the first time he'd ever seen her, ever experienced her plump mouth working against his, her tight body solid and soft in every place that counted._

_He touched her in reverence—as though it would be the last time he would ever have these things; ever have her._

_She was still mad, still completely and utterly mad at him_ ** _—_ _for_ ** _him—but she couldn't help the soft moan that escaped at having him like this again after so long without. When they finally separated, Hermione breathed heavily, the air puffing against his mouth._

_"Who would you have me take?"_

" _Me...take me."_

_Hermione was shocked and she didn't bother to hide it. They'd always been a secret. Nobody had known. Well, nobody except Harry and even that wasn't until after the start of that year. He'd been perceptive enough to notice her change in moods while Ron was too busy with Lavender's attentions. It wasn't news he enjoyed hearing, but he was there for her while she sobbed in the stairwell over what so obviously was over—until now._

_"You want to..?"_

_"No more hiding," he said it desperately, so desperately like it was the last time for everything._

_If she'd known then what was to become of them, she would have understood that it_ **_was._ **

_"But what will happen then? People will—"_

" _Fuck everyone else!" Their foreheads pressed together and he guided her arms to loop up around his neck. "I don't care anymore, Hermione!_ ** _I_** **_love_** **_you_** _and I just don't fucking care. I won't see you on the arm of another bloke, I won't. You're mine and anyone that has something to say about it can sod off."_

_Her heart thudded in her chest, squeezed tight and trembling in response to his words._

_They skirted around expressing their feelings so boldly but they both knew they'd been present for some time now. To hear him blurt it out just like that..._

_She should have known trouble was coming._

_Should've known he was trying to get in the time while he still could._

_She should have understood what it truly meant, but at the time all she could think of was hearing him say it again._

_"I love you too, Draco," she whispered against his lips, dragging him into another heated kiss. It was to be one of their last secret kisses, for they would finally come out to the public as a couple._

_Something light settled into her very being at the thought, happy to finally be able to stop hiding, elated to finally have him back._

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-..-'~'-.,__ **

**_I thought we'd get to see forever_ **

**_But forever's gone away_ **

**_It's so hard to say goodbye_ **

**_To yesterday_ **

**_-.,_,.-'~~'-.,_,.-_ **

**_'_ **

Hermione's breath hitched, a small cloud steaming from her lips on the shuddering exhale that followed. She swiped at her eyes with the heels of her palms, willing away the wetness that threatened to pool there in frustration. With a pathetic and disgruntled sound, she tugged the edges of her blanket more tightly about her shoulders and pressed her forehead against the pane. She felt the cold metal of her necklace through the layers of the blanket and moved to wrap her fingers around the large silver ring hanging from it. Hermione had intended to tuck it back beneath the neckline of her jumper but once her skin met the metal, she found it impossible to let it go. The nails of her fingers dug into her palm with how tightly she gripped it, willing the thoughts away.

She _needed_ them to go away.

She couldn't stand it, she couldn't stand _them_ , but she couldn't let them go either.

It was harder to let them go.

He was already gone, she couldn't lose these too.

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-.,__ **

**_'_ **

_"I love you," he rasped breathlessly._

_His lips brushed over her temple as she rocked on his lap. He ran his hands over her thighs, beneath the edges of her skirt, knickers lost somewhere in their frantic hurry to steal away from prying eyes and have a moment—just a_ **_moment_** _—to themselves._

_"Gods, I love you so much, Hermione."_

_Hermione tossed her head back, making room for him to kiss his way down to her neck and chest. He nestled his face in the swell of her bra covered breasts, her blouse open just enough to tease him into a frenzy. Her hips rolled against his, her arms circled his neck and she lost herself to the ecstasy of her lover's caress._

_"Draco—"_

_She moved her hands to tangle her fingers in his hair, her silver promise ring sat heavily on her finger, scraping lightly against his scalp and eliciting a soft growl from him. The party was tomorrow, she'd been anticipating it since she agreed to take him as her guest._

_Tomorrow._

_Tomorrow they'd be outed and it would be a small light in the sea of darkness that had settled over them all that year._

_The couple writhed against each other, their session short but no less fulfilling in the Room of Requirement. Draco asked her there that evening. They hadn't meant to get so physical, not again, not yet, but he couldn't keep his hands from her. He acted with an unapologetic hunger, a thirst that was only quenched by her touches and caresses and her—her, her,_ **_her._ **

_Once they'd both found their release, with their clothing back in place and the two of them snuggled together on a large bed that'd conjured itself for them in front of a comforting fireplace, Draco spoke._

_If she'd known, gods, MERLIN if she had known then what was to come, maybe she could have done something differently. Maybe she could have had more time—THEY could have had more time._

_"I can't go with you tomorrow," he said.  
_

_Hermione stopped the soft stroking of his arm where it rested over her belly. She fought to not turn and snap at him then and there, thinking maybe she misheard._

_"What?"_

_"I...I can't go tomorrow." He said again quietly._

_She did get up then, rather suddenly at that._

_Hermione shoved his arm away from her and climbed off the bed. By the time she stood and turned to face him, she saw that he'd gotten up as well but had his back to her, shoulders slumped, defeated. Her anger lessened some but still struggled to hold on.  
_

_"What do you mean? Why? Are you ashamed?"_

_"No!" he said firmly, a little too firmly. Draco shook his head, fringe falling into his eyes, shoulders drooping more. "No..." he repeated softly. "I'm not...I..."_

_He struggled with his words. He'd been hiding something from her. She'd seen it in his stammer, she could tell. There were several beats of silence before he finally continued, a resolve in his tone that she would later come to classify as horrific and terrifying due to what came after it._

_"I've been given a task, Hermione..."_

_"What?" she asked, confused. "What task? Who gave you a task?"_

_Draco looked at her then, over his shoulder, and his eyes were bloodshot and sorrow filled—moisture glistened in them and she knew. She_ _knew_ _so much more then in just that one look._

_"No... No!" Hermione gasped. Her fingers clasped over her mouth to try and stifle the noise. She shook her head, slowly at first then it became more and more animated as though that action alone would physically push the reality away. Hermione came around the bed then, knelt before him and took his hands. Her eyes fixed on his—ones that looked at her with so much regret and apology. "NO," she said more firmly this time. "You're not. Draco, tell me you're not. Please...PLEASE tell me—"_

_His throat bobbed and he choked back an emotion that solidified any doubt she may have had previously._

_She'd defended him._

_When Harry suspected...she'd defended him, each and every time. How foolish of her. How positively naïve she was. She should be furious, completely livid, inconsolable over this betrayal if not for her love for him butting back her anger. It suffocated all else until she was unabashedly pleading with his hands clasped between hers and held to her lips, because that's all she could bear to do._

_It was all she **could** do._

_"It's not true."_

_Draco turned his head, ashamed. When her fingers felt for the buttons of his left sleeve, he twitched at first but quickly stilled. He shut his eyes so tightly his tears finally escaped in hot lines down his cheeks.  
_

_Hermione's breath was coming quicker now. Her gaze was locked onto his left forearm and she knew what she would find there, but she had to see it. She had to confirm its existence before she could let it go._

_With shaking hands, she unbuttoned his cuff, looked to his face where it was scrunched in waiting for her to sentence him as she began to tug up the cloth. Hermione got only so far as to see the edge of it, dark and black and writhing at the presence of one of her kind—a_ _Mudblood_ _—_ _so close._

_She gasped and jerked away, releasing him and tripping over herself until she landed on her backside on the stone._

_"NO!"_

_"I tried," he said sullenly. "I...father made me. I couldn't refuse it. **Please** , Hermione! Please believe me when I say I tried! _ _He'_ _ll kill them! He'll kill my father, my mother—he'll destroy everything I hold dear to me if I don't do this."_

_It was difficult for her to make out the words past the intensity of the blood rushing in her ears but when she heard her name, she looked up dumbly. He was looking at her with meaning. His eyes were pleading and he dropped from the bed to kneel in front of her, taking her hands as she'd done mere minutes ago with his._

_"I tried to keep you at a distance. I just...I couldn't. I can't see you every day and know how I feel about you and not be with you. Not touch you. Not kiss you. Not hold you in my arms, I can't fucking stand it."_

_"Wh-what changed?" she managed to ask eventually. "Y-you wanted to be with me. Weeks ago. And now? Now, what's different? What is it—Draco, what happened?!"_

_He looked panicked, pulling her closer. Hermione resisted at first but allowed herself to be wrapped in his arms. She nestled her head beneath his chin as he stroked her hair with shaking hands. His own ring, one to match hers, glinted in the firelight and he stifled another sob, shutting his eyes again and kissing the top of her head in a way that sent fear flooding through every fiber of her being._

_"I thought I was being so careful. I thought—"_

_Hermione wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him to her and it seemed to ease his hammering pulse some, but just so._

_"He knows I have_ **_someone_ ** _here but he doesn't know who." His words started to come more swiftly, stumbling one over the other in a pace that grew more frantic by the second. "I thought it would be okay, that he wouldn't find out if you and I—he has more eyes and ears here than I realized—fuck! Hermione, I'm sorry! I'm so sorry. It was stupid—I should never have even suggested—fucking hell. He's already threatened to kill my mother if I don't succeed...if he finds out...you...you'll—"_

_'It WAS stupid.' That's what she wanted to say._

_To build them up like that and dash it all away when he should have known better from the start—when he should have told her more so she could help!_

_It would have been far less cruel to continue going on as they had been._

_She should have been yelling and screaming at him right now, shouting these very things._

_Instead, all she could do was curl her fingers more tightly into the fabric of his shirt, clinging to him in desperation. Hermione wanted to be angry but there was no more time for that. She could be angry after, because to be angry now would most assuredly mean losing him—possibly forever._

_"We'll go to the Order," she said quickly. Even then she knew it was more of something to try and make them both feel better instead of a real option. "They can offer you protection. Dumbledore can see to it, I know he can. He'll get you and your mother out at least. Somewhere safe where HE won't be able to find you."_

_Draco flinched at the elder wizard's name and hugged her closer. He shook his head. "He can't. Not this time...he can't help me. Not now."_

_Hermione pulled her face away from where it pressed to his chest to look him in the eyes. She heard it already in his voice, she knew that tone._

_"Draco, please."_

_"He wants me to fail in this. Hermione...if I fail, it won't just be my family that he destroys as an example...it'll be everything, everyone," he said the last again, staring hard into her eyes before allowing himself to take in the rest of her. Her hair, her chin, her cheeks, her nose, her lips— "Death is not simple, easy, or painless when it comes to him."_

_Hermione swallowed back the bile and tears trying to clog her throat. Not even an hour ago they were in each other's arms, kissing, touching, loving... Now they were talking about a madman threatening what little they had. It sparked the stubborn fire of resistance in her and she shook her head again, savoring the feel of his touch to her cheek._

_"I'm not afraid. Draco, let him help you. Let ME help you."_

_If only she had known what she was asking._

_The resolute gray eyes staring down at her wavered, a multitude of thoughts crossing his face in search of an answer. At once, his eyebrows shot up, focus set far off somewhere for a minute before it came back around and his lips set in a grim line._

_"He can't, but you can."_

_Relief flooded through her limbs._

_"Yes, thank you. Thank you." She cupped his face in her hands. "Anything. What can I do? How can I help?"_

_Draco swallowed past a solid lump in his throat, latching onto as much composure as he could manage as he prepped himself to ask her to do something that she would come to regret to her dying day._

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-..-'~'-.,__ **

**_I don't know where this road_ **

**_Is going to lead_ **

**_All I know is where we've been_ **

**_And what we've been through_ **

**_-.,_,.-'~~'-.,_,.-_ **

**_'_ **

Hermione watched the fat, puffy snowflakes sway in their slow falling spirals past the window.

Enough of her was pressed to the glass that, even through the blanket, her skin was like ice.

It was hard to care on a day like today. She just couldn't find it in her to do it.

Zabini went home.

Harry had never came back to school.

The Weasley's were still grieving.

She and her parents weren't on the best terms at the moment in light of what she'd done to their minds.

And Draco was...

Hermione shut her eyes because they were red and swollen and _tired_. She'd cried at some point she supposed but she couldn't be sure. Hermione thought she bit it all back but by the freezing tracks of tears on her cheeks, she clearly had not. Letting out a long, slow breath, she allowed the cold to creep in, felt it settling into her bones and toyed with the idea of falling asleep like that. When she woke, maybe Christmas would be over and the memories would go away. At least for one more year.

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-.,__ **

**_'_ **

_An awful idea._

_What a horrible, terrible, atrocious idea it was._

_She should have gone by herself. She didn't know why she felt so compelled to bring a guest, especially HIM. She just didn't want to be...alone._

_The music stopped suddenly._

_Hermione looked up from where she'd been nestled in a corner while Harry was distracting McLaggen. There was some sort of commotion and she saw the ratty, tattered image of Filch appear with his grubby hand hooked in expensive looking dress robes dragging a familiar blond behind him._

_Any lighthearted thoughts she'd been able to manage over the course of the evening drained out of her at the sight. She was sure her complexion paled several shades right along with them as her heart dropped into her toes._

_There was some kind of argument. Filch was talking to Professor Slughorn. Snape was there as well. Something about gatecrashing—she couldn't be bothered to care about the exchange. All she cared about was the boy in the mix of it all and the moment he turned his head and saw her staring at him from her hiding place._

_At first, he looked puzzled, startled even. A little like he'd gotten a zap from a piece of charged metal. His eyes raked over her form, moving swiftly and strangely in a way that was so similar to the looks he'd given her before but still so different. This time when his eyes met back up with hers, instead of the charming smirk or secret smile they'd shared many times before, his mouth curled up in a sneer. She could see the whites of his perfect teeth from behind the peel of lip; an expression of blatant disgust oozing from every pore._

_His eyes...they were dead, completely and entirely dead to her._

_The only spark of recognition was that of a long cultivated hatred for her and her kind. No thought, no memory, was left of anything that they used to be._

_As quickly as it happened, it was done._

_Snape was talking and had Draco's focus now. They were leaving. She didn't notice when Cormac finally happened upon her hiding spot. The git was yammering, saying something he undoubtedly assumed was charming and worth a listen, but all she could hear was her heart pounding so hard her chest would surely burst._

_All she could see were those dead eyes looking at her—through her—as though she were no better than the dirt under his heel._

_All she felt was the cold—that bitter, draining cold—seeping into the emptiness created by his departure._

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-..-'~'-.,__ **

**_If we get to see tomorrow_ **

**_I hope it's worth all the wait_ **

**_It's so hard to say goodbye_ **

**_To yesterday_ **

**_-.,_,.-'~~'-.,_,.-_ **

**_'_ **

Hermione opened her eyes again sluggishly.

It was darker out now than before, so much colder now as well. She hadn't eaten today, at least she was pretty sure she hadn't. She didn't recall much aside from sitting in front of the window and looking at the snow. Now that she thought of it, she didn't remember the last time she ate. Hermione also wasn't entirely sure what day of the week it was, aside from Christmas Day. They all just sort of blurred together now, the days.

Monday...

Wednesday...

Christmas Day...

What would've been their _— **no**._

Her stomach started hurting some time ago but so content to sit in the one spot was she, it eventually stopped. Or at the very least, she became accustomed to it and couldn't tell the difference. No food, no water, she didn't care. Today she just wanted to sit there, curled in her blanket, roving her thumb over the slight pattern engraved in the silver ring and forgetting about everyone and every thing around her.

Limbs weak and weary, a sadistic part of her wondered if anyone aside from maybe some of her professors would care if she allowed herself to waste away. It was a silly thought, stupid really. Of course people would care.

The logical thoughts battled the illogical, rolling through her head over and over. They were the only things keeping her upright and awake at the moment; that little bit of fight trying to urge her to do _something_ aside from wallow in her sadness. A witch of her ability had no business allowing something so simple as the loss of a man destroy her.

But really...how many times does someone find love in a lifetime?

Hermione wasn't sure what would have been worse for her. If he had perished during the war _—_ upsetting as that thought was even now _—_ perhaps it would have been easier. At the very least, she could grieve properly because it would've been over in the most literal and unchangeable way. She could chalk it up to fate or some other divination nonsense. Presently, she thought almost anything would have been easier than this.

She never imagined he would come back to Hogwarts.

She didn't think they would _let_ him come back, much less _make_ him.

The Ministry had an odd idea of punishments and after testifying on his behalf at his trial to keep him from a lifetime sentence in Azkaban, she thought she'd seen the last of him. He'd looked at her so oddly then. It wasn't anything that could be mistaken as a thank you, not then, just sheer confusion. He looked as though he was fighting to find something in the planes of her face and for a minute her heart fluttered in hope until it was dashed again with the blink of his eyes.

 _'Yes,'_ she thought solemnly. _'Almost anything would be easier.'_

Anything would be easier than seeing him every day in at least half of her classes, sometimes even having to work at his side in some. She yearned for something easier than watching him sneer or scowl at her in that icy way he'd done for so many years before they...well, that was irrelevant now.

What's done was done.

She tried to bring him back to her after the battle, after he and his family returned to what remained of The Great Hall and it hadn't worked.

It _hadn't_ worked.

It was much harder to restore memories than it was to steal them away, it seemed, but she didn't have the same trouble with bringing back her parents. Hermione thought maybe she just needed some guidance and approached Kingsley under a confidential veil of secrecy for his help, terrified when he revealed that since she took them, she would have to be the one to return them to both her parents and Draco. He showed her what he could and went with her to retrieve her kin, so when that worked out as properly as it was going to, she'd been emboldened by the task. She'd returned, managing another meeting with Draco, albeit begrudgingly on his end and tried to stimulate his emotions by having him hold the ring that was once his to try again _—_ to restore him to what he was.

He wouldn't have any of it.

He may have changed sides, but he still remembered hating her. And that's _all_ he remembered of her. He couldn't for the life of him understand why she'd so frantically insisted that he _'_ take the bloody thing', yelling and screaming with tears streaming from her eyes in a panic.

Such a thing wasn't needed to bring back her parents but Kingsley said it might help. She tried everything else he showed her as stealthily as she could to avoid rousing suspicion and making him dodge her for the rest of her days and none of that worked either.

Hermione still hadn't discovered what she'd done wrong.

 _'Of course I haven't,'_ she thought before she could stop herself. ' _If I had, I wouldn't be here without him on our anniversary.'_

The word took a second to register in her mind and the breathing she'd been doing so well to keep steady and even caught in her throat.

It was as though someone flipped a switch and she felt her heart racing. Her lungs worked overtime and her already food deprived dizziness grew worse as her breaths became erratic. Hermione choked back a sob _—_ fat lot of good it did as fat globs of tears fell in thick tracks down her cheeks. The memories she had of them together before and... _after_...rose to the surface.

Something in the depths of her chest churned with aching regret and sorrow.

Trembling, Hermione climbed to her feet, nearly falling immediately at the weakness in her body. She pressed on stubbornly, always stubbornly.

Wand, her wand—she needed her wand. She needed to extract these thoughts _—_ these _feelings_ _—_ from her before they consumed her.

 _'They already have,'_ she thought grimly, but kept searching.

She couldn't remember where she left it but it had to be close.

Her mind was so muddled and fuzzy.

The only things that were clear anymore were the images of the past so vividly burned into her brain.

Before she learned she wouldn't be able to bring him back, Hermione was resentful that he'd ever come back to her in the first place. She'd been so stupidly resentful he'd ever planted that seed of hope for them before that stupid party. But she understood him now—what he'd meant.

To see him there, within literal reach, only to have him utterly untouchable—gone, somewhere far, far away—it was maddening.

 _Merlin,_ how she understood.

Most people avoided him since his return that year and he them with one of his only friends being Zabini. Blaise Zabini who she was _so lucky_ to get to share the Head's dorm with. Which, in turn, meant she saw Draco more than nearly anyone else in the school outside of classes and _much_ more than she was able to handle.

For his part, Zabini was well mannered enough in her presence. Never once had he eluded to her blood status, though that was likely because such a thing was now highly punishable by law. She didn't allow herself to wonder what venom was said behind her back to the man that couldn't remember he'd once been hers.

She tried not to think of the laughs they probably shared daily at her expense.

Hermione _couldn't_ think of it, she couldn't see it, she just—she couldn't take it anymore.

He may not know her anymore, but she remembered him.

Perhaps...

Perhaps it would be better if she forgot, too.

Besides...what more did she have to lose?

Hermione renewed her search for her wand, stumbling around bracing herself on walls, chairs, and tables as she pushed and ripped and shoved everything around the room.

She couldn't see past the moisture in her eyes.

She barely felt where and what she grabbed, fumbling with numbed fingertips.

Her exhaustion and malnutrition was catching up to her.

She was just...so... _tired_...

Collapsing onto her hands and knees, great heaving sobs wracked her body. Barely one breath would escape before she jerked, choked, and coughed, her lungs gasping for air only to be clogged with tears. Her body curled in on itself where she landed, planted before the common room's unlit fireplace and she cried into the stone that lined the sooty recess before her.

It was one thing to lose someone to death or disease.

It was another thing entirely to watch them forget who you were to them.

To see yourself fade from a loved one's eyes...

To see all recognition of who and what you once were together suddenly gone...

To know that you were the one who was responsible...

...and to be made to lie in the ruin you created.

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-..-'~'-.,__ **

**_And I'll take with me the memories_ **

**_To be my sunshine after the rain_ **

**_It's so hard to say goodbye_ **

**_To yesterday_ **

**_-.,_,.-'~~'-.,_,.-_ **

**_'_ **

_They'd been paired off again._

_She would have to talk to Slughorn because she really wasn't sure how much more she could take of being partnered with him. Trying to gather her wits, hands shaking, she went to the storage closet to retrieve the last of the ingredients they needed for their brew._

_'Lizard tails, mandrake root, sprigs of lavender...' Just one more thing and she could return._

_She turned to grab for where she knew the salamander scales would be and collided so hard with another body that she lost her balance in her pivot. The sacks she was holding fell from her grip as her arms windmilled in an attempt to reestablish her footing or latch onto something, or both. Instead of what would, most assuredly, been a hard plummet to the stone of the potion lab's floor, she felt a warm, sturdy arm fasten around her midsection. It was awkward and a little bit painful, as it was obvious her hero was as surprised by her near tumble as she, but it thankfully saved her from injury._

_At least she'd been thankful up until she found herself looking up into a pair of cold gray eyes, the corners of them tinged with annoyance and...something else._

_"For fuck's sake, Granger, are you always this useless?"_

_Hermione swallowed against the lump in her throat, staring like a deer in headlights._

_Months._

_It'd been months since she was this close to him. Maybe a whole year or more—she couldn't remember now at his proximity._

_The urge to cup his face, to brush away the fringe of blond that always liked to fall forward now that he'd stopped slicking it all back, it was like a force all of its own. Her fingers twitched and she trembled, willing back the urge to stroke his cheek because it wouldn't be right. Seeing his look turn into a scowl, then a sneer, her stomach seized—it wouldn't be welcomed either._

_Draco set her back upright, seeming confused as to why he'd caught her in the first place. He released his hold from her and stepped away, making no movement to hide how he wiped his hands on his robes to rid himself of her touch._

_"Come on, woman. Class has started and we need to get to work already. You were taking too long in here. Honestly, does it really take you that long to gather ingredients?"_

_Hermione ducked her head, his cold words lancing through her like skewers._

_Willing herself calm, willing herself_ **_not_ ** _to cry, she shook her head. Her curls fell around her face, hiding the anguish threatening to surface. She muttered her apologies swiftly and quietly as she bent to collect the spilled items because any louder and he would be able to hear the crack in her voice. She couldn't stand his taunting, not right now. They were so close to Christmas break. If she could just make it til then, she would have time away and recompose herself the way she was meant to be. Stern. Studious. Focused. Not this laughable, shell of the girl she'd once been._

_Hermione thought she was alright until she heard him curse under his breath and saw his pale hands come into view._

_He was scooping up tails and pushing them indelicately back into a burlap bag while she worked on the others. Her heart hammered at his nearness and she sucked in a breath as quietly as she could, pawing around the floor to retrieve everything she'd dropped. When she felt the tug at her neck, she froze, physically unable to move._

_Her eyes shifted to where one of his pale hands had hold of her necklace. His old ring rested in his palm. She thought she'd tucked it back beneath her collar but she must have been fiddling with it once again in her nerves earlier. When her trembling brown eyes panned up to see his face, she was unsure of what she would see there._

_Draco was staring hard at the trinket, his brows creased in deep concentration while his eyes scanned over the item._

_Hermione saw a flicker of recognition and her heart raced._

_Would it work?_

_She knew if he would just see it, just touch it, that he would—_

_"This is that thing you were trying to get me to take when we...spoke that time, isn't it?" he asked carefully.  
_

_Her hopes sputtered and she fought to keep her features even._

_Of course._

_He only recognized it from the time where she'd been acting 'positively barmy', as he'd put it._

_"It is."_

_Draco didn't seem to notice her guarded tone, quite focused on tracing over the engravings with that same puzzled expression. His scowl lessened very slightly._

_"Who did this belong to?"  
_

_Hermione's jaw clenched, not sure how to answer. She could tell him the truth._

_'You. It belonged to you.'_

_Somehow she didn't think that would go over well at all._

_With as close as they were to break and to Christmas and their—_

_She couldn't take the rejection again._

_"The man I loved."_

_Draco's eyes snapped up at her grave, fragile tone. He looked shocked to see her face there, even though he'd most certainly known that it would be. The corner of his mouth twitched like he wanted to frown or do **something** else that provided her a kind of sympathy, but he resisted it. _

_"What...what happened to him?"_

_His stare was so focused, so earnest. It drilled straight into her; deep down through the layers protecting her heart. Hermione's lip trembled and she couldn't help but take in the sharp angles of his face, gazing at him in a way she knew must have given everything away. Her hand was poised near his cheek and when her own fingertips came into view, so close to touching him again after all this time, she choked out, "The war."_

_Draco's brow furrowed and something passed behind his eyes. It was a brief thing and as quickly as it'd come, it was gone, snapping him to the present again. His eyes darted to where her hand hovered near his cheek as if seeing it for the first time and he jerked away from the impending touch._

Hermione's breath hitched, a sharp and painful sound that cut like a knife.

It was all she could do to not fall apart.

She pulled away from him suddenly, scrambling clumsily to her feet to get back up and most importantly, **_away_** _._

_She had to leave._

_She needed to get away._

_She just needed to GO. **NOW.** _

_Hermione ran._

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-..-'~'-.,__ **

**_And I'll take with me the memories_ **

**_To be my sunshine after the rain_ **

**_It's so hard to say goodbye_ **

**_To yesterday_ **

**_-.,_,.-'~~'-.,_,.-_ **

**_'_ **

So taken by her misery, Hermione never heard the sliding of the portrait entrance.

She never even realized someone had entered until she heard the first and last voice she wanted to hear.

"Hermione?"

Her strangled sobs choked off and she shot upright, trying to scramble to her feet. The sudden movement sent the room spinning and her arms scrabbled for the mantel while the world slipped from beneath her feet.

"Hermione!"

Warm arms looped around her waist before she had the chance to crack her head open on the hearth.

_Deja vu..._

When the owner of those same arms helped to coax her stumbling, bumbling form safely back down, Hermione knew she'd finally gone insane.

"Dra— _Malfoy_ ," she tripped over his name, correcting herself, albeit barely. She didn't have the energy to deal with him laying into her again for her 'oppressive familiarity' in using his first name; not today. Not anymore. "H-how d-did you _—_ p-p-p-ortrait _—_ "

Draco frowned, looking to her mouth and her chattering teeth.

"Blaise gave me the password some time ago."

_'Ah. That would make sense.'_

"H-h-he went home f-ff-for break."

She shuddered and shivered, the chill in the room more noticeable again now that she wasn't huddled in on herself and recycling her own body heat. Maybe it was the lack of food but she thought she must be hallucinating when she felt a new warmth and weight settle around her shoulders. Hermione opened her eyes blearily _—_ _when did she close them again? she was so tired..._ When her vision cleared, she found herself face to face with Draco's pale expression laden with worry and concern.

"I came to see you," he said, voice thick.

Her brows creased harshly as she tried to work through the words in her head. It was difficult to understand what he was saying between the hunger and fatigue...and the cold.

It was so cold...

...and she was tired.

She could just sleep...

Her eyes started to shut again but she was pulled roughly from the doze with a sharp shake of her shoulders. A blob of warmth fitted itself to her cheek; she leaned into it unconsciously.

"Hermione!"

Startled awake by the sound of her name, Hermione's lids fluttered and she vaguely realized her head was cradled in Draco's palm, his thumb sweeping gently beneath her eyes where tracks of tears had frozen over her skin. Trying to make sense of it all, Hermione replayed what he'd just said, turning sluggish, glazed eyes to his face.

"Why?" she croaked out.

She felt something moving over her arm, over the heavy new layer draped around her shoulders—the thing she now realized was a coat. _His_ coat.

That's when the muddied gears in her head finally clicked past the clog mucking them all up and she realized that he'd been calling her _Hermione._

Eyes widening and cobwebs clearing, Hermione raised a frozen hand towards his cheek, unable to push herself past that point; she couldn't.

It was the storage room all over again.

Her hand hovered inches from his skin.

Was he a dream?

A nightmare?

Did she finally fall asleep and—

Before her mind could crawl any further into that dark hole, one of Draco's hands curled over hers, pressing it to his cheek.

Draco's gray eyes glistened, a sheen of moisture gathering in the corners of them. He huffed out a strained laugh and smiled at her, squeezing her fingers.

"I'm back."

Hermione sobbed and smiled for the first time in months.

_"Draco!"_

Both her hands were on him: his face, his hair, his arms, his chest, _everywhere_.

With renewed vigor, she moved, touching and feeling and seeing everything about the man in front of her before he could be ripped away again. Hermione grasped at him desperately, cries of happiness, anguish, anger, and everything in between wrenching themselves from her small frame.

Draco was no better, nor did he make any show of being it. His own tears flowed freely before her, before the only woman outside his family he dared bare himself to in such a way. She hit and clawed, hugged and kissed him and he took everything she had to give. He wanted all of her anger, all of her love, he would accept it all with open arms because she was _his_ again and, Merlin above, he didn't _care_ about anything else!

" _Fuck_ , I missed you so much," Draco sobbed into her hair.

"I'm sorry," she said, burying her face against his chest. "Draco, I'm so sorry! I couldn't get you back before—I tried and I couldn't—"

He shook his head, squeezing her more tightly and rocking her in his arms.

"Shh," he shushed her, "I'm here now and I'm never fucking leaving you again."

Countless minutes passed between them like that before Hermione peeled herself from his arms far enough to look into his now blotchy face, eyes just as red as hers. She sniffled and turned her head to hide how wrecked she knew she looked only to have him catch her face and turn her back his way for a kiss that dashed all thoughts from her mind. The press of his lips drew another sob from her and she could taste the salt of her tears as they snaked down to intrude on the kiss.

Draco peppered several more kisses to her lips, rubbing his thumbs over her cheekbones until she calmed again and so many unspoken things passed between them in those moments.

_I'm sorry._

_I was wrong._

_I thought I was keeping you safe._

_Why didn't you stay where it was safe?_

_It was like walking through a fog when you were near me._

_I found you._

Calmer now, Hermione was lucid enough to pause and breathe in the man holding her in his arms. He smelled just as she remembered with that woodsy cologne with those other subtle hints of mint and aged parchment that would always surround him. He even felt the same.

She hadn't finished enjoying him being there just knowing who she was yet before he pulled away again. Hermione opened her mouth to protest but his hand moved methodically for the coat still wrapped around her shoulders. He reached into the breast pocket to retrieve something and took up one of her hands in his. When he did, she watched his throat bob as soon as he saw she was still wearing her ring.

Draco cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to his face. He looked as though he were going to say something but Hermione was distracted again when she felt the addition of a new weight sliding over her finger. She blinked down to see Draco's shaking hand pull away and took in the diamond band he'd just set in place against the other. Hermione gasped and looked back up to his anxious expression.

"I made you a promise and I intend to keep it." He swallowed, returning to his previous task of smoothing back her hair from her face as if memorizing the way she looked. "I don't want to wait any longer, not after," he paused, his voice timid and unsure now that he'd started talking, "...i-is this okay?"

It was the most poorly worded proposal in the history of the world and the most wonderful thing she'd ever heard.

Hermione couldn't help the smile that overtook all else. It made her muscles ache with the exertion and she could be further from giving a damn about it.

"Yes," she breathed.

A warding tightness in Draco's shoulders leaked out instantly with her reply and Hermione nodded more emphatically than before.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Gods Draco, yes! It's perfect." She did well tamping down on the urge to burst into more tears. Her hands slid around his waist, tugging him close and burying her face against his neck. "You're perfect."

Draco breathed deeply of her scent, nuzzling into her mess of curls and savoring it all.

"I love you."

It was mumbled and barely there in the otherwise silent and cold room, but she heard it well enough – she _felt_ it warm her insides and chase away the deathly chill.

"I love you too, Draco."

 

**_._ **

**__,.-'~'-.,__ **

**_It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday_ **

**_-..,_,,_,..-_ **

**_'_ **


End file.
